15 Familiar Stories That Did Not Happen the Way We Repeat Them

Inside this gallery: 15 historical photographs, each with the year, the place, and the story behind the picture.

• The Great Wall Is Not Visible From the Moon — the past. NASA says the Great Wall cannot be seen from the Moon with the unaided eye and is difficult to distinguish even from low Earth orbit without favorable conditions or magnification.
• The Declaration Was Not Signed by Everyone on July 4 — the past. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, but the familiar parchment collected signatures later.
• George Washington's Teeth Were Not Wooden — the past. Mount Vernon's research describes Washington's dentures as combinations of materials that included human and animal teeth, ivory and metal, depending on the set.
• The Cherry-Tree Confession Is a Later Moral Tale — the past. The story that young George Washington cut a cherry tree and confessed because he could not lie entered print through biographer Mason Locke Weems after Washington's death.

Tap any photo above to jump in, or view the full story below.